Transaction Trending, a podcast by ETA

When merchants power up their new, smart, integrated point-of-sale systems, they want more than just payments acceptance. They want data. They want analytics. They want scheduling and HR tools, inventory management, accounting software, ecommerce integrations, and more. Payments tech companies have been stepping up to deliver. That’s where companies like Homebase come in. Homebase is an Independent Software Vendor, or ISV. Through a suite of software products, Homebase offers merchants scheduling, timesheet and hiring software, integrated directly into point-of-sale systems. ISVs like Homebase are offering payments companies the value-adds that merchants want. In some cases, ISVs are even venturing into payments processing themselves. At ETA's recent TRANSACT Tech Atlanta event, ETA CEO Jason Oxman sat down with Rushi Patel. Rushi is the co-founder of Homebase and a former payments industry analyst. What's next for the ISV marketplace, and how can payments technology companies capitalize? Listen in.

Payment facilitators are shaking up the sales channel in the payments industry. With a new approach to underwriting and a heavy emphasis on fintech, Payment facilitators like Square and Stripe are providing new payments solutions to merchants of all sizes. Payment facilitators are important to ETA. Our new committee on Payment Facilitators meets regularly to discuss the industry and make connections. We also bring hundreds of payment facilitator and software leaders together at our events like TRANSACT and the TRANSACT Tech series. ETA CEO Jason Oxman met up with Mark Bishopp earlier this summer at TRANSACT Tech Atlanta. Mark is CEO of Amaryllis, a full-service software platform that can service any payment facilitator. Under his leadership, Amaryllis has forged partnerships with some big players in payments technology. Mark is an expert in the nuts and bolts of the PayFac marketplace, so Jason and Mark took a moment between sessions at TRANSACT Tech Atlanta to discuss PayFacs and how the market is responding to their innovations.

What started as a ripple has now become a wave. More and more, people across the tech world are setting their sights on a technology that its staunchest proponents say will fundamentally change not only the payments industry, but every industry. The technology is blockchain, and while its not exactly new, its development, implementation and impact within the payments ecosystem is yet to be fully understood. On this episode, ETA CEO Jason Oxman is joined by Emi Yoshikawa, Director of Joint Venture Partnerships at Ripple, one of the world’s most prominent blockchain startups. Ripple has developed blockchain technology that can provide global financial settlement solutions to financial institutions. As Director of Joint Venture Partnerships, Emi manages business development for Ripple in Asia. Emi is an expert in the utilization of blockchain technology for financial institutions. Earlier this year, she participated on a keynote panel on blockchain at TRANSACT, the world’s largest payments technology event.

Tap-and-go: three words that will come to define the payments experience in the United States. Contactless payments are coming stateside, and the new wave of technological change is being powered by ETA members like Wells Fargo Merchant Services, whose Executive Vice President, Liz Ryan, is the chair of ETA’s Contactless Task Force. The ETA Contactless Task Force met this year at TRANSACT as part of its ongoing mission to develop and implement an industry-wide plan that encourages the adoption of contactless payments. The task force is co-chaired by Melanie Gluck, VP, Mastercard and includes executive leaders from all relevant segments of the payments technology industry, including all major card networks, payment processors and merchant acquirers, financial institutions, software and tech firms, hardware developers and sales channel organizations. ETA CEO Jason Oxman caught up with Liz – who, in addition to chairing the task force, also sits on ETA’s Board of Directors – on the show floor to talk about the ETA Contactless Task Force. She also gave her view of the changing sales channel and role of disruptive software in shaping payments technology.

In 1998, Henry Helgeson founded Merchant Warehouse in upstate New York. He was selling simple terminals and printers to small businesses. In December of 2017, TSYS acquired Cayan – the company Merchant Warehouse would eventually become under Henry’s leadership as CEO - for $1.05 billion. In the twenty years in-between, Henry grew Cayan into a major innovator in the payments marketplace. Cayan has built a portfolio of 70,000 small business merchants and has over 100 integrated partners. Through its Genius platform, Cayan has brought to market a suite of software and hardware products that offers small and medium business owners a variety of advanced payments capabilities. On this podcast, Henry takes listeners through the history of Cayan, how he capitalized on the early days of ecommerce to build a billion dollar payments technology company, the company's acquisition by TSYS, and his insights into the future of payments technology. Henry is a leader and an innovator in the payments industry with decades of experience growing Cayan. He was recently honored at TRANSACT for being awarded ETA’s Distinguished Payments Professional for his work in advancing the industry. Take a listen here.

If you’ve tapped, dipped or swiped your card recently, chances are it was on a Verifone terminal. For over 30 years, the hardware company and its terminals have been a staple of many payments solutions for merchants across the world. However, as ETA CEO Jason Oxman often discusses on this podcast, the payments industry has changed in some major ways. Once a relatively simple piece of hardware, modern payments devices from companies like Verifone must be dynamic, powerful unions of advanced software and hardware. They must be elegant, capable, adaptable, and above all, secure. On this episode of Transaction Trending, a conversation on the innovations at Verifone that drive these products and the payments ecosystem forward with Drago Dzerve, Vice President, Product Management at Verifone.

From the show floor at TRANSACT, the largest payments technology show in the world, ETA CEO Jason Oxman sits down with Rich Aberman for a conversation on the future of fintech. Rich is the co-founder of WePay, a Silicon Valley startup turned payments technology success story. Rich founded WePay in 2008, just one year out of college. Now in its 10th year, WePay has left an notable mark on the fintech world. Funded and supported through its early years by major tech players like Max Levchin, Steve Chen, Y Combinator and Highland Capital Partners, Rich and his team have built an impressive online integrated payments platform. And in August of 2017, JPMorgan Chase announced that it would acquire WePay at a reported valuation of over $220 million. Jason and Rich took a few moments during the Paysafe opening reception on the TRANSACT show floor to talk about WePay’s journey from early funding rounds to acquisition, as well as his observations on payments technology and financial services.

At $485.9 billion in revenue last year alone, WalMart is by far and away the world’s largest retailer. Founded in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas by a man named Sam Walton, WalMart has since grown into a titan of the retail industry, making numbers that are simple incredible. Its 4,672 retail locations in the United States make up 699 million square feet of retail space. Walmart employs 1.5 million Americans and 2.3 million people worldwide. Recently, WalMart has been making notable advancements through mobile order ahead, cross-border payments, grocery delivery and ecommerce. Joining the show this week on Transaction Trends is Redd Luhtanen, Senior Director of Global Treasury at WalMart. Reed has responsibility for Walmart’s payments-related public policy and public relations initiatives. Along with an internal leadership team, Reed is also responsible for establishing Walmart’s payments acceptance strategies. With billions of dollars flowing through WalMart’s systems every day, Reed oversees a payments technology operation at an unrivaled scale. Listen on for an exclusive look into how Walmart, the nation's largest and most influential retailer, thinks about payments technology.

It’s been four years since the first NFC-enabled smartphones with mobile wallets entered the marketplace. But contactless payments technology has been around much longer than Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. The Mobil oil company introduced its Speedpass mobile payment device at U.S. gas stations in 1997. FreedomPay tested a mobile payments wand in 2004 with McDonalds. The first contactless credit card was introduced by Barclays in the UK in 2007. Today, in Europe, consumers tap their contactless cards to pay millions of times every day. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., consumers and merchants have yet to make contactless payments part of their daily lives. On this episode of Transaction Trending, a conversation on contactless – and what it will take for this fast and secure technology to grow here at home. Joining ETA CEO Jason Oxman is Matt Donnelly, Senior Vice President of Security and Solutions at Freedompay. An early pioneer in contactless payments, Freedompay was founded in 2000, and provides advanced payment solutions to merchants across healthcare and hospitality. And Freedompay is sponsoring the first-ever Contactless Payments Zone on the TRANSACT show floor, happening April 17-19th in Las Vegas. Matt’s work at Freedompay spans multiple areas of expertise. With a background in Systems Engineering and computer science, Matt has developed point-to-point encryption for EMV and contactless payment solutions. He is an expert in payments and works closely with processors, gateways, financial institutions, software companies and developers, to keep Freedompay’s products up-to-date. Matt was recently honored in ETA’s first-ever 40 Under 40 class.

The payment's industry's big show - TRANSACT - is right around the corner. The world’s largest payments technology event is in just two weeks - April 17-19 - at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Thousands of payments technology leaders will gather to connect, learn, display their latest and greatest products and services, and make deals that will shape the future of payments. It is a time of significant change in our industry. ETA commissioned a study to find consumer’s views on recent payments innovations. Two thirds of U.S. consumers agree that using mobile payments is easier than paying with cash or with a physical credit or debit card. With speed, convenience and savings are being their primary motivators for using mobile payments. Though our survey found that Baby Boomers were most likely to carry cash, 69 percent said that they can envision a time in the future when we won’t carry cash at all, replaced entirely with smart technologies. With the payments industry expanding its value proposition for merchants, TRANSACT is the opportunity to see the seamless payment experience in action. The impact of new software vendors and tech companies is defining the way our industry approaches payment solutions. No longer is enabling mag-stripe acceptance enough for payments service providers. ETA’s Payments Trends to Watch found that U.S. merchants will spend $5 billion dollars between 2018 and 2019 on POS software alone, plus another $3 billion on customer analytics and loyalty management solutions. As they are looking to upgrade their POS hardware, they are looking toward faster, sleeker, more capable, and more competitively devices. The point is that our industry is undergoing a very exciting tectonic shift in so many ways. Payments service providers must and forge partnerships, develop products and stay innovative in order to stay competitive in an age of high-tech payments. The stage is set. And so is TRANSACT. On this special edition of our podcast, Jason is joined by VP of Industry Affairs Amy Zirkle, one of the architects of TRANSACT, to discuss how TRANSACT has been built around arming attendees with the intel, know-how and network to navigate this exciting time in our industry.

On today’s episode, Jason explores the software-driven changes that the payments industry has experienced. One-click ordering, voice commerce, mobile payments; from garage-door startups to the world’s largest technology companies, software companies have fundamentally shifted the way our economy – and the payments that enable it – function. Jason is joined by Ben Goretsky, CEO of USAePay. Ben has been active in the payments software business since he was 18 years old, founding USAePay with his brother after starting his degree in computer science at Cal State Northridge in 1998. Since those early dorm room days, Ben has built USAePay into a major payment gateway and software provider, connecting merchants with payment solutions that use software to enable advanced capabilities. As CEO, Ben also oversees USAePay’s partnerships with VARs, ISVs and other new players, an emerging industry trend that has been quickly changing the landscape of payments. Ben manages IT at USAePay and is an expert in software – both from the development side and the payments business side. He was recently honored in ETA first-ever 40 Under 40 class.

Data - the bits and bytes that power the payments technology ecosystem. Since the early days of knucklebusters and magstripe cards, data has always been a key to enabling electronic payments. In the early days, data was used to authenticate transactions and track returns. Today, between eCommerce and integrated point of sale technology, more consumer data is generated, captured, and stored. While merchants need data to generate more sales, fraudsters are looking to steal that data. From complex, state sponsored cybercrime, to lone wolf hackers, the market for stolen data is expanding. Criminals thwarted by new security tools are quickly moving on to ever more complex fraud. On this episode of Transaction Trending, a conversation on data security, and what payments companies must do to protect consumer data from criminals. Our guest is Tom Wimsett, Executive Chairman of ControlScan. ControlScan is a managed security service provider and as chairman, Wimsett brings decades of leadership in the payments industry. Before heading up the ControlScan board, Wimsett founded, built and sold two merchant acquirers. Wimsett also served on the ETA board of Directors. He is an expert in data security and payments and he joins ETA CEO Jason Oxman to discuss how payments technology companies and their partners can keep critical data safe.

Peer-to-peer payments have moved from millennials to mainstream. These FinTech services enable quick and easy digital payments. So whether its Girl Scout cookies, splitting a restaurant check, or roommates paying the rent, payments can move instantly via smartphone. Looking ahead, P2P payments could change how we buy things online and in stores. Today, a discussion on the future of P2P with Lou Anne Alexander, Group President at Early Warning and one of the leaders behind Zelle, the fastest growing P2P network in the United States. Lou Anne is a 20-year veteran of the financial services industry. She oversees Zelle, which launched in mid-2017 and has already moved more than $75 billion between accounts. Lou Anne joins the podcast today, and she will also join ETA CEO Jason Oxman on the keynote stage at TRANSACT, the largest payments technology event in the world, happening April 17th-19th at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Click visit www.transact18.com for more information.

The payments experience is being shaped by digital innovations. Stores are going cashless. One store is even cashier-less. Where we once had to carry cash, or swipe an old-fashioned mag-stripe card, consumers today have a mind-boggling array of payment options. And as we explore new ways to pay, payments technology companies need to stay at the leading-edge. Today, a discussion about how the payments industry is deploying new acceptance technology for merchants, and how new players in payments are challenging the status quo. Joining ETA CEO Jason Oxman on this episode is Amy Parsons, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Acceptance and Customer Experience at Discover Financial Services. Amy has had a long and impactful career at Discover. As Head of Global Commerce, she helped build digital channels by integrating mobile wallets like Apple Pay into Discover’s network. She also oversaw Discover’s transition to EMV. Before that, she in Europe, bringing digital commerce capabilities to Discover’s international portfolio of merchants. And she presided over massive growth in U.S. acceptance at Discover - from 72 percent to 98 percent of merchants.

On this episode of Transaction Trending: a conversation on the past, present and future of the payments industry with Robert Carr, founder of Heartland Payments Systems and CEO of Beyond, a new payments company. With a background in computer science and programming, Carr has been a leader in the payments technology industry for over 30 years. In 1997, Carr founded Heartland Payment Systems, which went public by 2005 and by 2016, Heartland was the sixth largest payments processor by volume in the United States. Heartland Payments Systems was acquired by Global Payments Inc. in 2016 in a multi-billion-dollar deal. A founding member of the Bankcard Services Association, today known as ETA, Carr is a longstanding leader in the payments industry. Carr is also the author of several books and the champion of many philanthropic causes, particularly in the area of education. In 2017, he founded Beyond, a new payments company that has quickly grown and found success in its first year. Carr joins ETA CEO Jason Oxman this week on Transaction Trending to discuss his perspective on the history and future of the payments industry, his new company Beyond, as well his philanthropic work.